the magnificence of the materials used to conceal the steel. Humfrey de
Bohun had breastplates covered with "vert velvet"; the Earl of March
used "rouge samyt" and "drap d'or," and others had "cendal vermeil,
samit vermeil, zatony, veluyau asuré, veluyau vert ouvré de broderie,"
etc. Piers Gaveston's pair of breastplates were "enclouez et garnie
d'argent od 4 cheynes d'argent covery d'un drap de velvet vermail
besaunté d'or." Two pairs of plates for the King of France required
3000 crescentic and 3000 round gilt nails to fix the velvet. Exposed
pieces of armour were gilt, if not jewelled, pearls and carbuncles
being the favourite gems. The baldric, knightly belt, sword-belt, hilt,
and scabbard furnished a field for the goldsmith. The magnificence
indulged in was often destructive to the wearers, who might have
otherwise escaped in battle. They were "hunted for their hides," or
slain for the sake of their spoils.
The weight and fashion of the armour largely determined the tactics in
war. The English appear at this time to have reverted to their ancient
practice, once more dismounting to engage in battle. At Cressy the
horses were sent to the rear, while the army, forming into battalions
of archers supported by dismounted men-at-arms, took up its ground and
waited the attack. The weight of armour carried by the men-at-arms made
any forward movement on their part impossible on foot. By good fortune
the 15,000 Genoese cross-bowmen, who might have inflicted severe loss
on the English, were unable to use their bows, and the French coming
up quite out of hand, charged and retreated as the spirit moved them,
without deploying into any battle formation, and so fell into the
utmost confusion, with the well-known results. Our archers "shot their
arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it snowed,"
piercing the Genoese and dismounting the horsemen; upon which a body of
1000 Welsh foot with long knives advanced through the men-at-arms, who
made way for them, and slew numbers of the French chivalry, so that the
battle was "murderous and cruel."
At Poitiers, 1356, the English similarly selected a strong position and
awaited the attack dismounted. The French, uncertain how to meet the
enemy, commenced by attacking with a mounted division, which was routed
by the effect of the English arrows on the horses before getting to
close quarters. Their retreat threw the second battalion, which also
appears to have been mounted, into a confusion, which quickly developed
into a panic. Deeming an advance necessary at this critical moment,
the English men-at-arms sent to the rear for their horses and charged,
completing the destruction and dispersal of all but the rear battalion.
This was dismounted in order to fight on foot, and armed with sword and
battle-axe presented a most stubborn front, under the king in person,
numerous parties from the broken battalions rallying and dismounting
to join in its advance. The English resumed the defensive and remained
immovable, the archers plying their arrows with the usual effect. The
only English force capable of movement and able to skirmish in the
field was the archery, while the men-at-arms kept their ground or
advanced very slowly in compact order, until, seeing the day won, they
again mounted to complete the discomfiture and engage in pursuit.
At the battle of Auray, 1364, the French dismounted and fought on
foot, when the arrows did little execution among them, and the fight
developed into a hand-to-hand engagement with battle-axes, in which
the leaders, Sir Oliver de Clisson and Sir John Chandos, greatly
distinguished themselves. In all subsequent battles and skirmishes
between French and English, until the close of the century, we find
that both sides invariably fought on foot, riding up till almost within
striking distance, and then dismounting as if by common consent. To
advance any distance on foot after dismounting in order to engage was,
in fact, almost impossible. The old knightly weapon, the lance, was in
consequence almost discarded, and could now only be used effectively if
shortened to about five feet, and thus with the shield fell into disuse
as a weapon of battle, while the presence of artillery also began to
make itself felt.
IV
_The Age of Plate-Armour_
Any line dividing what has here been termed a Transition Age from the
age of fully-developed plate-armour must of necessity be a purely
arbitrary one. Roughly speaking, the age of plate commenced when mail
no longer formed the outer defence of any part of the body. The last
chink, leaving the mail exposed under the armpit, was a vulnerable
opening in the armour called the "vif de l'harnois," or the "defaut
de la cuirasse"; and even this now became protected by small plates
of steel called gussets. The necessity for such defences was often
proved in tournaments: it is related that the lance pierced "au vif
de l'harnois" for lack of the crescent or "gouchet." When these last
plates were added the knights appeared more invulnerable than Achilles.
We find at almost every period, however, that a fair blow delivered "au
pas de charge" with a well-steeled lance might penetrate every defence;
and that no armour could be made actually proof against downright blows
from a two-handed battle-axe wielded by a powerful and expert rider.
One of the most marked characteristics of this age of plate-armour
was a growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of steel, and a
new desire to invest steel armour with graceful lines. The tendency
is best exemplified in the fine Gothic armour of the second half of
the fifteenth century, of which much is fortunately preserved. This
combines most splendidly picturesque outlines with graceful fan or
shell-like ridgings, which please the more when examined critically,
since every curve and fluting serves some definite and practical end.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.--Grand-guard of the suit of George, Earl of
Cumberland, in the possession of Lord Hothfield. This is a part of the
20th suit in the Armourer's Album in the South Kensington Museum. From
a photograph communicated by Baron de Cosson.]
The casing of plate-armour, which had been so long elaborating,
having at last become complete, the work of the armourer was directed
to further perfecting its parts, and to disencumbering the wearer,
with the least risk, of his weighty underlying chain-mail, quilted
gambesons, and padded surcoats. This process had not proceeded far
when Agincourt was fought, if we may credit the testimony of a French
knight, who was present and describes the armour as consisting of the
long hauberk of chain-mail reaching below the knee, and very heavy,
with the leg-armour beneath, and over this the plate or white armour
with the bassinet and camail. One Allbright, noted particularly as
"mail-maker," and twelve other armourers, were in the suite of the
king on this expedition. The weight of armour would, therefore, have
rendered a repetition advisable, on the part of the English, of the
tactics of Cressy or Poitiers in this battle, had not the French
disconcerted us by dismounting and seating themselves, and refusing to
advance. They had also, copying the English, brought a large force of
archers and cross-bowmen into the field, and, in addition, kept bodies
of men-at-arms in the saddle on either wing, to make flank attacks
when opportunities occurred. The English having in vain endeavoured to
provoke the enemy to advance by sending out archers to fire a house and
barn, posted an ambuscade and moved forward, the archers in front as
usual and the men-at-arms behind. The archers thus gave up the shelter
of their pointed stakes, and the men-at-arms suffered the fatigue of
an advance in armour of an almost insupportable weight to men on foot.
They advanced, however, with repeated huzzas, but, as the Chroniclers
inform us, "often stopping to take breath." The French, stooping their
visors under the amazing hail of arrows that began to fall upon them,
gave way a few paces, and the English, coming close up, pressed them
soon afterwards so hardly, "that only the front ranks with shortened
lances could raise their hands." Our archers, flinging away their
bows, fought lustily with swords, hatchets, mallets, or bill-hooks,
supported manfully by King Henry and his men-at-arms. Pressing on and
slaying all before them, they routed the van and reached the main
body, which was also quickly destroyed. The rear battalion of the
French, which had remained mounted, then fled panic-struck, and the
battle terminated in some desultory charges made by a few parties of
nobles and their men-at-arms, which were easily repulsed; 10,000 French
perished, all but 1600 being gentlemen! many in the massacre of
prisoners consequent on a false alarm. The battle of Verneuil, so fatal
nine years later to the Scots, who lost the Earls of Douglas, Murray,
and Buchan, with the flower of their army, was fought on precisely
the same lines; the main French battalion with their Scottish allies
on foot being first shaken by the storm of arrows, and then destroyed
at close quarters by the advance of the archers with the usual "loud
shouts," supported by the Duke of Bedford and the men-at-arms. These
defeats caused the French to again waver in their plan for meeting the
enemy, for at the battle of Herrings, and the skirmish at Beauvais in
1430, they made their attack mounted, the English archers receiving the
first charge behind their palisade of pointed stakes, and defeating
the enemy by the clouds of arrows taking their usual deadly effect on
the horses. These stakes, six feet long and sharpened at both ends,
formed an important item of the archers' equipment, and were planted in
the ground by the front rank, sloping towards the enemy, the next rank
fixing theirs intermediately to affright the enemy's horse. Throughout
the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Burgundians of all arms were often
compelled "under pain of death" to fight dismounted, the Picards
especially adopting the tactics and perhaps equalling the English. A
little later, as at the battle of Montlhéry, 1465, both Burgundian
and English archers are armed with the formidable long-handled leaden
mauls or mallets, which the armour of the men-at-arms was incapable of
resisting. In the account of one of these battles we learn incidentally
that the duty of the varlets who invariably formed part of the retinue
of each man-at-arms was to succour and refresh their masters during the
heat of the engagement, and to carry the prisoners they took to the
rear.
As the various hauberks of mail, brigandines, gambesons, and other
defences became more or less obsolete and discarded by men-at-arms
armed cap-à-pied, they were relegated to a lighter-armed cavalry and
the infantry; but so long as a suit of mail continued to be worn by the
man-at-arms as a defence underlying the armour of plate, flexibility in
the latter was of paramount importance.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Helm from the tomb of Henry V. in Westminster
Abbey, date 1400-1420. From a photograph lent by Baron de Cosson._]
Regarding the armour of Henry V. as the earliest complete cap-à-pied
plate-armour, we find it thus composed. The breast and back plates are
each of one piece, the gorget is usually in one, though a standard of
mail sometimes replaces it; the limb-defences are of few pieces and
rigid, except at the joints, which are guarded by caps or roundels;
while the armour of the fingers, toes, and upper surfaces of the
shoulders is articulated or protected by narrow laminar plates. The
introduction of the gussets, and more particularly of the horizontal
bands of plate forming a short petticoat below the waist, materially
altered the appearance of the armour of the fifteenth century from that
of the fourteenth. The plates of the petticoat, called the tassets,
are first seen in the brass of Nicholas Hawberk, at Cobham, who died
in 1406, and they gradually increase in number till about 1420. At
Agincourt, where the fighting was on foot, the visored bassinet would
have been worn by the king and his men-at-arms, and not the great
helm. The example of the latter suspended in the chantry of Henry V.
in Westminster Abbey, though a real helm, was only purchased from
Thomas Daunt, for 33s. 4d., according to Rymer, with the crest, for
the funeral. The bassinet was probably plumed with ostrich feathers,
which were taking the place of crests, and was encircled by a coronet,
damaged in the melée by a blow from the Duke of Alençon, which among
its jewels comprised the ruby of the Black Prince, now in the regalia.
The diamond-hilted sword was not taken into the fray, unfortunately,
as it happened, and fell a prey to the baggage-looters. The king is
generally represented wearing a tabard of arms on this occasion, a
garment differing from the surcoat in being loose and cut like the
modern herald's tabard, emblazoned before and behind and on the broad
flaps which do duty for sleeves. The horses, borrowing the custom of
Lombardy, wore a heavy chamfron or headpiece of plate, of which a
specimen still exists in Warwick Castle, and an articulated crinet
or neck-defence of overlapping plates, put together on the same plan
as the tassets, and probably some mail defences concealed by the
emblazoned caparisons. The ostentatious magnificence which had hitherto
covered the body armour of the knight with silks and satins, velvet
and bullion and gems, especially among the Burgundian French, was
now in process of being transferred to the horse. The housings are
described as of silks and satins of every colour, or velvet crimson
and blue, or cloth of gold, and sweeping the ground, besprinkled with
escutcheons of arms, and loaded with silversmith's work, or raised
work of solid gold. We read of trappings of white silver fringed with
cloth of gold, and of cloth of gold interwrought with solid silver; and
it appears that no materials were too rich to deck out the favourite
destrier or war-horse. It is unlikely that the English were at this
time behind the French in display, for so early as 1409, of the six
pages of Sir John de Cornewall, two rode horses covered with ermine,
and four horses with cloth of gold; and in 1414 the English embassy
carried themselves so magnificently that the French, and especially the
Parisians, were astonished. Splendid, however, as were the housings,
the headpieces of the horses eclipsed them. The horse of the Count de
Foix at the entry into Bayonne had a headpiece of steel enriched with
gold work and precious stones to the value of 15,000 crowns. The Count
de St. Pol's horse's headpiece on leaving Rouen was estimated to be
worth 30,000 francs, while those of the Dukes of Burgundy and Cleves
on the entry of Louis XI. into Paris were still more magnificent. That
of the king, however, was on this occasion merely of fine gold with
ostrich plumes of various colours. As with the armour in the fourteenth
century, the rich trappings of the horse naturally led at times to the
pursuit and capture of the owner. It is difficult to believe, in days
of such magnificence, that the pay of the Duke of York under Henry V.
was only 13s. 4d. per day, an earl received but 6s. 8d., a baron or
banneret 4s., a knight 2s., an esquire 1s., and an archer 6d.
Though Henry V. wore royal armour at Agincourt it does not appear
that he followed the prudent custom, first noticed in the battle of
Viterbo, 1243, of dressing several knights in an identical manner with
himself. At Viterbo, on a knight dressed like the emperor being slain,
the result was a panic, and the emperor himself had to press with his
trumpets into the thickest of the fight to restore confidence. At
Poitiers, though nineteen knights were dressed like the king, it did
not preserve him from capture. In England, however, the king was saved
on many a field by this precaution, as at the battle of Shrewsbury,
when the earl, Sir Walter Blount and two others in royal armour were
slain. The passages in Shakespeare will be present to the mind of all:--
Another king! they grow like hydras' heads;
I am the Douglas fatal to all those
That wear those colours on them. Who art thou,
That counterfeit'st the person of a king?
and again, when Richard exclaims at Bosworth--
I think there be six Richmonds in the field:
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
The appreciation of steel, called by the Chroniclers plain or white
armour, for its own sake, had not progressed very far by the time of
Henry V.'s invasion of France, but the more lavish splendours were
at least reserved for gala occasions. The next modifications were
evidently devised to increase the flexibility of the armour, and can
be traced with greater precision in England than elsewhere, owing to
the fortunate preservation in our churches of a matchless series of
military monumental brasses. These clearly indicate that the tendency
during the first half of the fifteenth century was to increase the
number of joints or articulations in every part of the armour. By the
close of the reign of Henry V. things had proceeded so far in this
direction that in some cases the greater part of the limb-defences are
made up of laminated plates.
The next important change in the appearance of the man-at-arms occurs
in the early years of Henry VI., and is due to a striking development
of the fan-shaped elbow-guards, first seen in a rudimentary form in
1425, as well as to an addition of short hinged plates called tuilles
to the bottom of the hoop-like skirt of tassets which lay closer to the
body. By 1435 these tuilles are ridged or fluted perpendicularly and
scalloped along the lower edge, and shortly after they take the more
developed, elongate and elegant forms familiar in Gothic armour. By
1440 we have the addition of great shoulder and elbow plates attached
by nuts and screws, and concealing the articulated shoulder-pieces or
epaulettes. These extra plates usually differ in size, being often
very much larger on the left side, which received the blows, and thus
conferring a quite peculiar character on the plate-armour of the middle
of the century. A scarcely less important modification, introduced
about 1445, is the articulation of the breastplate in two pieces, the
lower overlapping and sliding over the upper, and made flexible by
straps.
The Daundelyon brass of this date, at Margate, exhibits a left
elbow-piece of immense size, and pointed and ridged tuilles below the
tassets, which are almost repeated again in form by the plates below
the knee-caps. John Gaynesford's brass at Crowhurst, 1450, presents
strong reinforcing shoulder-guards over articulated plates, and
repeats the same long peaked and ridged plates below the knee-cap. We
continue for the next few years to find the limb-defences constantly
varying in the number and form of the pieces composing them, according
to the dictates of conflicting requirements, namely flexibility and
impenetrability. The frequent absence of tuilles at this time is held
to imply that they were not used in combats on foot, then very popular.
It is obvious that when the immensely long and pointed solleret came in
with the equally preposterous spur, the fashion of fighting on foot was
on the wane, and the men-at-arms generally fought mounted during the
Wars of the Roses.
We see by manuscript illustrations that a few suits were still gilded,
and we find Jack Cade after his victory in 1450 flourishing about
in a suit of gilt armour, the spoils of Sir Humphrey Stafford. But
the ever-growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of the steel
panoply and its fine military qualities is now distinctly felt, and
the armourer sought more and more to invest his work with beauty of
form. All is still entirely dictated by fitness to its purpose, and
the requirements of jousts and war; and the decorative and subtle
shell-like ridgings and flutings are really present more to deflect
the weapon's point than as ornament, while the engrailing, dentelling,
scalloping and punching of the margins of the plates unmistakably
indicate that the decorative spirit is applied to embellishing and not
to concealing the steel. The superb gilded metal effigy (Fig. 19) of
Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, presents a faithful model of the
most beautiful type of Gothic armour known. Every fastening, strap,
buckle or hinge is represented with scrupulous fidelity, not only on
the front, but on the unseen back. Baron de Cosson, who has minutely
described it, expresses the belief that it is a faithful reproduction
of a suit actually worn by the Earl, and therefore earlier than 1439;
although the effigy itself was only produced in 1454, and the armour
agrees with that worn in England at the latter date. He regards the
suit represented as the work of the celebrated contemporary Milanese
armourers, the Missaglias. Italian armour is shown by sculptures,
medals and paintings to have been many years in advance of English,
and the two known contemporary suits by Tomaso di Missaglia greatly
resemble it. The Earl of Warwick knew Milan in his youth, when he had
tilted successfully at Verona; and it was a practice among the great
to obtain armour there, dating from so far back as 1398, when the
Earl of Derby had his armour brought over by Milanese armourers; the
Baron's view presents therefore no improbabilities. Wherever made,
the Earl of Warwick's suit appears to have solved the armourer's
problem, being at once light, flexible, yet impenetrable. Indeed, in
its beautiful proportions and admirably perfect adaptation to all
requirements, it appears more like a work of nature than of art. The
contours of the pieces and their graceful fan-like flutings, to give
strength and deflect opponents' blows, are artistically splendid.
The great shoulder-guards and elbow-pieces, the cuissarts and winged
kneecaps, the tuilles, the jointed breast and back plates, the upright
neck-guard, not hitherto seen, are all fashioned with consummate skill.
In such a suit the preux and gallant knight for three days held his
tournament victoriously against all comers, presenting each of his
discomfited adversaries with new war-chargers, feasting the whole
company, and finally "returning to Calais with great worship." The two
cuts (Figs. 20 and 21), illustrating scenes from his life, are taken
from the exquisitely drawn illustrations to the contemporary Beauchamp
manuscript, now in the British Museum. The incidental testimonies to
the excellence of Italian armour of the middle of the fifteenth century
are abundant. A stalwart Burgundian champion tried in vain during a
tournament in 1446 to penetrate or find a crevice in the armour of the
Duke of Milan's chamberlain, whom it was impossible to wound; and in
1449 the suit of another knight in the service of the same Duke was
said to be steeped in some magic liquid, as so light a harness could
not possibly have otherwise withstood the heavy blows it received.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,
on his tomb in St. Mary's Church, Warwick. About 1454. From the cast in
the Crystal Palace, Sydenham._]
No word ever escapes the chronicler in praise of English armour;
but the splendid model of the Earl of Warwick's suit is by William
Austin, founder, and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith, both of London,
with the gilding, chasing, and polishing by Bartholomew Lambespring,
Dutchman and goldsmith of London. The will directs that the effigy
shall be made according to patterns, directions obviously most
scrupulously carried out.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.
The Earl of Warwick slays a "mighty Duke" who has challenged him to
combat for his lady's sake, and wins the favour of the Empress, to whom
he makes a present of pearls and precious stones. The costume is about
fifteen or twenty years later than the death of Earl Richard, and shows
the extra pieces worn in the tilt-yard, 1450-60.]